Anachrony in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: A Study of the Novel’s Narrative Tense Arrangement

Abstract

—This article represents a critical reading of the arrangement of the narrative tense in the storytelling of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) [1]. Gérard Genette’s [2] concept of narratology as a structuralist approach to literary criticism forms the theoretical grounding for this analysis. The study aims to explicate the plot and its narrative order, the storytelling techniques used in the novel, the process in which they generate certain narrative effects, and the narrator’s temporal position vis-à-vis the story that is being recounted. The study employs descriptive methods to interpret textual facts and data obtained from the research object. The examination reveals that Lolita’s plot is communicated using the framework of analepsis combined with achrony, an amalgamation that explains the novel’s complex narrative structure. Achrony is also pivotal in suspending the significance of certain events in Lolita and the device thus creates substantial narrative impact. It delivers the essence of the novel, which is specifically engendered by the interactions between the initial narrative and the verified account tendered by the narrator of Lolita .